From the ‘hacienda’ to the rural settlement: A case of cultural and political modernization in the municipality of San Clemente

Abstract

The main objective of this work is to describe the modernization process that has taken place in the Flor del Llano locality from the times of the “hacienda” until today. This process has resulted in the disintegration of the traditional rural social structures. The forced inclusion of the remaining spaces and populations into the society of “modern Chile” (the free market economy and state jurisdiction), implies in turn the disappearance of the ancient rural traditional cosmogonies. To describe these results, understood as consequences of the modernization process, two sections will be presented. The first one will describe part of the cultural modernization of the locality, in which symptoms of the demise of the traditional peasant cosmogony are manifested; while the second part aims to render an account of one of the central interpretations of this study: to perform a reading of the political modernization of the Flor del Llano locality as a process of juridical and administrative reincorporation to the Chilean State.